Push/pull door latches have been found particularly suitable for use on doors to hospital rooms and the like which typically open into the room. A hospital door provided with a push/pull type latch is opened from the outside by applying pressure to the push side of the latch, and opened from the inside by pulling on the pull side of the latch. A hospital technician may enter a patient's room while carrying an armload of medical equipment by merely applying pressure to the push side of the latch, thereby unlatching the door and pushing it open. Conversely, a patient who may have limited use of his or her arms because of the presence of a cast or the like, can unlatch a door and open it from the inside by pulling on the inside handle, an effort requiring a minimum of dexterity.
A number of push/pull type latches are available, and two typical examples can be found in Toledo, U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,474, and Walls, U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,047.
Push/pull door latches include a slide bolt which is movable from an extended/latched position to a retracted/release position, and a cam which is rotatable between a first position and a second position. When the cam is in the first position, a slide bolt in the door latch is in the extended/latched position. When the cam is rotated to the second position, the slide bolt is moved to the retracted/release position. The latch further includes a lever having a central fulcrum, one end of which serves as the handle, and the opposing end of which has a threaded foot added thereto by drilling and tapping that end. The foot is positioned against the cam. The handle is movable from a first position in which the cam is in its first position, and the slide bolt is extended, to a second position thereby rotating the cam to its second position, and retracting the slide bolt.
The handles for such push/pull type door latches are typically cast metal and require stops to prevent the rotation of the handle through a greater arc than that bounded by the first and second positions. Existing castings for handles must be drilled and machined to receive the stops. Such stops are in the form of pins and are identified by indicia number 38 in the patent to Walls, and are not shown in the patent to Toledo. A study of the specification and FIG. 1 of Toledo, however, reveals that the left handle 18 is free to rotate clockwise, and the right handle 18 is free to rotate counterclockwise unless such movement is prevented by a stop. Handles constructed in accordance with Toledo must also be drilled and machined to receive the stops.
To simplify the construction of such a push/pull type door latch, it would be desirable to provide a handle and a handle mounting assembly for a push/pull handle which would not require that the cast metal handle be machined to receive such stops. Specifically, it would be most desirable to provide a handle for a push/pull door latch which would not require the insertion of stops in the handle as a step towards the assembly of a door latch.